Feeling Blue

My story "Feeling blue" is about a dystopian future, where humans live in isolation and where all social interaction is banned. Memories are the only place where physical interaction exists. The project is inspired by the ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus, which is affecting 190 countries and has already claimed over 20 000 lives. One of the measures being taken to slow the spread of the virus is isolation. Since humans are social creatures, isolation can, in the long term, affect people's mental health and even physical wellbeing. Being self-isolated for two weeks has already ruined my sleep pattern. This made me wonder how we would all cope if today's extraordinary circumstances were to become our everyday routine in the future. Due to a number of factors, including climate change, there is a visible increase in infectious diseases, which affect our lives in many different ways. Global warming means more and more infectious diseases will appear, and the possibility of a life and society without face to face interaction will cease to be purely theoretical. I have used film negatives as a metaphor for my own negative feelings towards the possibility of a total inversion of social reality. Past social pressure to engage in human interaction is replaced with the demand to isolate oneself, just like light and dark surfaces are inverted in negatives. This work shows places and situations from before when people were still allowed to be together but turns them into something frightening. The negative emotions they evoke in viewers reflect a state of isolation.